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In Hearts Wake chats Skydancer, touring in America and the band's
journey!

Last week, I sat down with a band who just started touring in the US earlier this year. Since that point, they have already completed three US tours and told me in our interview, they will be back for a fourth time before the end of this year. In Hearts Wake has been killing it in Australia for years but recently made the move to come stateside. With successful tours under their belt with Stick Your Guns and Amity Affliction, The Ghost Inside and most recently with Northlane, they have been absolutely killing it. As you’ll read in our interview, Jake the lead vocalist of In Hearts Wake wasn’t sure how it would go over in Boston since they hadn’t played here before and the crowd completely surprised me. The kids knew every word to the set and threw down in Boston. With the quick amount of time the band has been touring here, it’s clear this band will have a hugely successful career here that is sure to match the one they have already built back home and in Europe. It was a pleasure to sit down with Jake and it was one of the most honest interviews I feel I’ve done in a while!

A soft one to start, I know the band has obviously been a band for a very long time and you’ve been doing this band for almost ten years. Still pretty new to the US touring, maybe the three things you must have with you to survive on tour?

Some sort of bedding always. Sleeping bag and pillow come hand in hand. I think they’re the same thing. That way you can create a bed wherever you are in the world. That’s important. Must haves with me. Passport and the other thing would probably be the labtop so I can keep the band running wherever I am. Yeah!

Then maybe how has the touring been going? You were on tour here maybe a few months ago in the US and then you’re on this tour with obviously fellow Australians Northlane. Maybe now that you’ve done that tour I think it was in March or April.

It was February/March, yeah. It was Stick To Your Guns/Amity tour then we did another one back to back with The Ghost Inside.

So maybe considering that touring, how do you think it’s been going over?

So good.

So good?

Yeah like really, really good. For opening. We opened those two tours and we’re playing second on this tour. The response and reaction is gaining a lot of momentum. As opposed to starting out. Completely from the start as a band. Do you know what I mean? I think that’s because our foundation that we have is something very solid to present and people are really picking up on it so it’s really good.

Then I know ‘Skydancer’ came out in May and I was reading that it came out that it was something you had recorded the same time you were recording the last record. So are you even like thinking of recording new music considering you had those songs recorded for so long. Were they all older songs?

Yeah, so we did twenty two songs. We wrote for two albums and we didn’t split them in half. We wrote specifically for each one and they are part of a concept. Masculine and feminine. The theme of duality and they were released a year apart. We’ve got plenty of more songs already that we’ve started working on just in the background but we have really been on tour a lot and really have done a lot in the last two years. Two albums, five music videos, too many tours. So next year, we will turn our heads to our new album I’d like to think. So these songs don’t feel like old songs even though they were written in 2013, two years ago. They were written for the future of In Hearts Wake. We really projected them to come out now. We haven’t been jamming them and playing them live until this year. So it’s fresh.

And are the kids knowing the songs here, like singing the words?

Yeah! I mean I can’t guarantee it for Boston because we’ve never played here before.

You’ve never played Boston proper right?

Yeah Worcester. So we haven’t played in Boston. We have, like you said, played in the surrounding area but it didn’t feel like Boston. Worcester is like an hour away right? So we’ll see tonight.

It’s where a lot of these shows go and it’s starting to come to Boston. I’m so used to having to go to Worcester.

You go to The Palladium, right?

Yeah The Palladium. Then I wanted to ask you, I know touring in the US is still relatively new.

It is.

Pretty new for you but you’ve had bands that are really big here like We Came As Romans open for you back home. Maybe advice to bands to kind of make that jump considering you have such a big following at home? You have these huge bands in the US that play to like 2500 kids a night opening for you in Australia.

Advice for Australian bands? I don’t think you can make a jump. I think it’s such a slow process.

You guys have been together for so long.

We have but when we started In Hearts Wake, we were like fifteen. We were in high school. We weren’t touring. We weren’t even thinking about touring like ten hours away from our own home at that point. So it was only until we left school at eighteen, nineteen which was five years ago that we went alright, we don’t want to go to college. We love playing music this is what we want to do. That’s when Kyle, the bass player who sings, joined the band. At that point, we could have called it a new name because we were like let’s keep the little baby going and we’ll raise it further. So these things don’t happen overnight and we couldn’t have gone on tour to America five years ago because, I don’t want to use the word conquered Australia but we needed to show Australia the band that we needed to be. Then take that foundation and when you bring that to another country, it’s already so well established and you’ve got focus on what exactly it is you’re promoting. It’s quicker to grow somewhere else. So Australian bands, I wouldn’t make any jump. I’ve seen a few bands come over here and try to get big over here before Australia and you can never do that and go back. It doesn’t really work like that so I think that you should focus on Australia. Grow that before you spread your wings. That’s what I would say. That’s what Northlane did too.

You started your band so young so this is when like most bands would be coming over the first time anyways.

Yeah, the age that we’re at. When you’re twenty four, twenty five. So that would be my advice because if you do plant seeds everywhere at such an early age in your career, the finances that you have you won’t be able to get back to those cities because it’s just way too hard. It’s fiscally impossible to try and get to Europe and go like everywhere on your first album. So you really need to just stick with what you got and just let it naturally grow. It will happen.

I wanted to ask you, I know we kind of talked about the record before but considering you’ve been writing for this band for so long. You’re a few records in now. Do you think the songwriting process still changes?

Yeah it evolves. We’re much better at it now. Then we were when we were fifteen. Hundred percent. Always getting better but as you get better at it, you also want to try new things. So you’re always on new ground but I think we’re more confident at taking risks.

Then do you remember the first CD or first cassette you ever got as a kid? Then the first concert?

I think the first cassette that I bought, like this goes beyond like Disney like Lion King soundtracks.

Did you have a lot of Lion King soundtracks?

I think I had like the whole Disney collection on cassette but I remember buying Limp Bizkit’s ‘Nookie’ on a cassette.

Do you remember your first concert?

My first concert, well. My stepdad played in a band called Mass Appeal and they toured with Henry Rollins. They were playing Black Flag songs. It was a tribute tour in Australia and they asked my stepdad’s band to reform to do the tour and I got to go along when I was twelve or thirteen. Got to go to stand side stage and watch my stepdad go nuts. That was really special but my first concert being in the crowd was Yellowcard one year later. It was fun. I was crowd-surfing. Seeing what it was really about.

Then to maybe to end it off, I know you’ve kind of talked about this how an album is something you’ll probably be working on maybe early next year but kind of what’s coming up for In Hearts Wake? You’ve been over here so much these past few months. Do you think you’re going to like take a break and just tour in Australia?

No we finish this tour then we’ll have three days at home. Then we do a headlining tour then we go straight from that to Europe for a European/UK tour then we go straight from London and fly overnight to LA. Then we start another tour here and it goes for like six or seven weeks.

Really, that fast?

Playing everywhere so we’ll be back here in November.

Really, back in Boston already?

Yeah back In Boston. I’m not sure if it’s Boston proper. The tour is announced but we’re not announced on it yet.